Liquid Lenses For Camera Phones

Roland Piquepaille writes "In this article, the Register writes that "camera phones will soon have lenses made from nothing more substantial than a couple of drops of oil and water, but will still be capable of auto focusing, and even zooming in on subjects." The lenses, developed by the French company Varioptic, contain drops of oil and water, acting respectively as conductor and insulator, and sandwiched between two windows. These liquid lenses could replace glass or plastic ones because of several advantages: no moving parts, leading to better reliability; a very small power consumption; very small dimensions (diameter: 8mm; thickness: 2mm); and a very fast response time of 2/100th of a second. You can expect the first camera phones using these liquid lenses as early as Christmas 2005. These lenses might also appear in medical equipment, such as endoscopes, optical networking equipment or surveillance devices. This overview contains other details and references."

Comments

Durability

[fembots]

This company was only founded two years ago, I wonder how much has been put into testing the quality and durability of the oil, which is subject to voltage going through it every now and then. However given the rate people change their mobile phones, durability might not have to be a feature.

Other than that, it's a great invention, no wonder the guy will pursue an aggressive intellectual property strategy, so anyone who wants to build something like this will need a licence from them.

There's also a mentiond of true zoom capability, using two of the liquid lenses. Wouldn't that defeat the purpose of being very small, since you need more depth to create the zooming effect, no?

Re:Durability

[harrkev]

Wouldn't that defeat the purpose of being very small, since you need more depth to create the zooming effect, no?

Yes, it would. Bit it would still be a lot smaller than having a tiny threaded barrel, a tiny motor, tiny gears, etc. So it would need some length, but probably a lot less than the alternatives.

The only thing that worries me is how well something like this would handle shock. If you drop you phone, what if a small drop of oil broke off and was then floating around in the water. Maybe shaking it would get it to merge back again, or maybe not.

Other than that, it's a great invention, no wonder the guy will pursue an aggressive intellectual property strategy, so anyone who wants to build something like this will need a licence from them.

I believe that I remember reading about this concept in the original Star Wars movie novelization (or maybe it was some other book, but I DID read it a long time ago in a city far, far away). So the concept is not new. Making it work is. I have no doubt that the particular materials and methods used are definately covered by patent, but I wonder if somebody came up with a different method of using oil lenses, if they could use the "prior art" of sci-if?

sigh

[grub]

When reading the article my main thoughts were "Pretty cool sounding tech..." then I read the final paragraph.

Varioptics has just filed a further two patents, and will pursue an aggressive intellectual property strategy. "We think, and out patent advisors think, that this is the only way you can do it [build an auto focussing lens] with liquid," Paillard says. "So anyone who wants to build something like this will need a licence from us."

I just lost so much enthusiasm for this idea.

Re:sigh

[Rude Turnip]

This is the kind of stuff that patents were intended for...novel inventions. Moreover, by the context of that quote, they are focusing (no pun intended) on a specific way of building such a lense...again in the true spirit of what patents are for.

speed

[kaleco]

2/100ths of a second? That's much faster than those common-as-muck 1/50ths ones.

Liquid Lenses Rock!

[Gilesx]

I love liquid lenses. I often indulge in testing sessions where upon I don my own pair of "liquid lenses" by drinking 8 pints. It's sooo cool how it makes all the ugly chicks look like Jennifer Aniston!

Dune, anyone?

[evanbd]

Unless I'm mistaken (it's been a while), they had oil-based optics in binoculars in Dune. Always cool when a science fiction idea sees real life :)

SciFi to Reality

[NardofDoom]

Frank Herbert wrote of oil lenses in Dune: Link

It's pretty cool that this is coming to pass, even if they're not sandwiched between force fields.

Re:SciFi to Reality

[Moekandu]

He was basing it on slightly different technology that has existed for many years used with microscopes.

If you have a properly designed glass lens and you have a drop of oil between the lens and the subject you can resolve far greater detail than with a normal lens (say 1000x as compared to 300x). The problem was that no one had developed a way to encase the oil so that it would stay stable and clean, while still exibiting the same optic properties.

Until now. I actually remember reading about this company when it first formed. It's cool to see their progress in bringing this technology to market.

I think Frank had conceived suspending the oil in a something like a shield field. I think Varioptic's solution is just a bit more elegant (in spite of being a raving Herbert fan).

Biomedical, but patented

[Anonymous Coward]

Artificial eyes and camera capable of very fast, accurate focus could be built from these. But they have patented the technology (such as it is) up the ying/yang. What this means is they are now sitting on their duffs, waiting for money to roll in. They technology could be improved and create real breakthroughs...but it's patented, so those good ideas will languish for your great great great great grandchildren. When the patent expires in 2196, the technology will be improved, patented again, and improved again in 2305 when that patent expires. Millions could have benefited from it in the interum, but alas, why improve things when you can patent and stifle?

What about prosthetic uses?

[beef curtains]

From my (very, very shallow) understanding of the technology, it sounds like it could do pretty well (in theory, at least) in "prosthetic-eye/lens-type" uses...at least for people with lens-dengenerative issues.

Re:Space lens

[harrkev]

At small scales, drops appear spherical. But I am not sure that this would scale well. I would imagine that at some point (probably around 1mL) the surface would deviate from spherical enough to cause problems. AFAIK, most things in space need big lenses, so it might not be suitable.

Also, could this type of contraption survive launch? Itallian dressing is oil and water. But if you shake the bottle really hard...

Hey. Wait a second.... They patented Itallian Dressing!!!!!

Another recent article on liquid lenses

[natural rah]

There is another recent article on this topic here in the latest issue (Dec 2004) of IEEE Spectrum. From this article it looks like this technology will be commercialized within the next 2-3 years.

um.

[Anonymous Coward]

A really small image sensor requires a really short focal lenght, which translates itself into a really small lens, which further translates itself into a very big depth of field. This means that the area behind and in front of the plane of focus that's sharp is large, and that accurate focus is very often not needed.

Therefore, I'm not yet impressed by the claim that this lens can be focused without moving parts. First I'd need to be convinced that it needs to be focused at all, for the intended application.

Re:Humidity, physical contact, etc.

[kaleco]

It is sandwiched between two protective layers. It may be more fragile than conventional lenses, but it should be durable enough to be excellent value. The cost of adding analogue zoom and focus to such a cameraphone (and keeping it small) would otherwise be prohibitive.

Re:Zooming

[tambo]

So uh... it's liquid, right? And liquids have some annoying tendencies... freezing, boiling, expanding/contracting, leaking, drying up? Liquids respond much more dynamically to temperature changes than solids, especially glass.

Even if they won't freeze or boil within normal operating temperatures - they're still running current through it, right? Even if the liquid is stable and inert from -10C to +40C, an electric problem could cause it to heat up in a hurry.

- David Stein

Bell Labs talked about this almost two years ago

[malakai]

Tunable Microlens

No idea if they had patents on it. If this French company got there first, these would seem to be very lucrative patents.

As for SciFi being there first, that's hardly an argument we (Geeks) want to see used. If companies can't make money off a technique or concept because a SciFi writer wrote about it abstractly, they will not invest the money needed to create such a technology. We'd have to sit around and wait for some gigantic government initiative like the Space Shuttle to get technology we've long dreamed for. And even then.. it's rarely in a form we can benefit from.

Remeber, its 1% inspiration/ 99% perspiration.

It's gret these SciFi writers inspired our engineers, but the effort that goes in to producing viable products should not remain un-rewarded.